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INTRODUCTION

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Many farmers highlight the difficulties they encounter when trying to sell their products and the low levels of profit that they are able to earn. Market access is an initial difficulty, but it is only one aspect of the problem: once at market, they must sell for a price that generates sufficient income for them.

In order to deal with these difficulties, farmers have developed individual and collective initiatives. These initiatives often remain little-known and many preconceptions and caricatures about how markets work continue to block and constrain them at the local level.

It is against this background and in the framework of the Working Group, “Market Access and Agricultural Product Marketing”, that Inter-réseaux initiated a process of collective thinking based on shared analysis and case studies.

On its own, this theme is extremely broad and could be approached from multiple angles and at different scales. Furthermore, the diversity of socio-economic and agro-environmental contexts confronted by farmers and breeders translates into a large range both of production systems and collective organisations put in place to improve their marketing activities.

Various choices concerning methodology and angles of approach were made in order to steer the Working Group and limit the scope of its work. These choices, particularly the choice to work only with case studies involving family farmers, are outlined in this section.

Among other things, these choices provide the reader with a clearer understanding of the aims of this document, its structure and content, and the audience we hope to reach.

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1 – CONTEXT

1.1 – Difficult market access and marketing conditions

An unstable supply of agricultural products

Agricultural output, on the African continent as in other regions, is characterised by irregularity due to the annual and even multi-annual seasons of biological processes (there is no such thing as continuous production; instead it “spurts” in periods of harvest) and their subordination to disease and climatic changes. Agricultural output depends upon complex processes linked to living and changing beings; soil and plant interactions with micro fauna; plant-air exchanges, etc. In agriculture we work with living things and not with dead matter (as is the case with the automobile industry, for example). Certain systems of agricultural production seek to distance themselves from the agro-environmental setting by introducing elements of artificiality: in these systems, it is not a matter of adapting seeds to a specific setting, but of adapting the setting to suit a certain type of seed (high-capacity seed stock used with specific types of fertiliser).2 As a general rule, however, agricultural systems are dependent on the weather, on the climate, the time period of biological growth process, and the perishable nature of numerous agricultural products. The supply of agricultural products is characterised by instability, both quantitative and qualitative.

Added to the difficulty of mastering production is the weak elasticity and even rigidity of demand among buyers: no matter what happens, populations require agricultural products to feed themselves. This leads to an absence of spontaneous adjustment of supply to meet demand for agricultural products and to instability in pricing (agricultural markets have always been unstable).

Non-optimal operation of markets

Analyses of sub-Saharan Africa reveal less-than-optimal market mechanisms that strongly shape the poor adjustment between supply and demand for agricultural products: failing infrastructure for warehousing and transportation, weakness in the banking system with the absence of credit and insurance markets, non-competitive situations (a limited number of buyers in dominant and/or concentrated positions facing a multitude of disorganised sellers), asymmetries in access to and quality of information, rules and norms applied in a discriminatory fashion, formal and informal taxation leading to higher costs (lack of transparency in pricing and the factors that govern it). Agriculture is not merely about agricultural products: it involves all of the socio-economic processes and organisations that drive it, including the relations of production (differential access to the means of production such as land, money, equipment, labour), the balance of power between actors in both the supply chain and the markets that give actors more or less room to make choices and confront risks.

Instability in prices

In the end all of these factors, at both the supply and demand levels, result in uncertain and unstable market prices and often in poor remuneration for farmers. This is not without its consequences: weakly remunerating and/or unstable prices do not motivate farmers to risk making mid- to long-term investments in agricultural production (one doesn’t invest in a perennial plantation for only one year!). Agricultural price instability obviously also affects consumer prices and consumer purchasing power (most often but not always in cities). It is a general factor of instability at the country level.

2 These system scan also introduce new forms of dependence, for example if farmers do not have a choice among sources of fertiliser and their suppliers.

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It is worth noting a simple fact: agricultural products, in particular staple nutritional foods, are not like other types of merchandise. The recent changes in agricultural markets and crises related to purchasing power and access to food among populations in the underdeveloped South are a reminder: while we might be able to put off buying a new television set or a pair of shoes, the need to eat is a daily one. The impossibility of deferring the need for this good according to market availability and price is of course a major source of tension and instability, which can be dangerous for civil peace.

Markets that do not self-regulate

It is well-known that agricultural markets are not self-regulating. There is no meeting point between supply and demand with optimal allocation of resources for the common good. The “invisible hand” is not only invisible, it is also often clumsy. In fact, if the invisible hand’s regulating actions are hardly perceptible (because in agriculture more than in other sectors, the market is not regulated by itself), it can have very sharp claws! At the risk of taking an overly strong “pro-farmer” position against urban consumers, it is nevertheless urgent to find solutions to improve rural conditions, to preserve the stability of countries.

Stability for whom? (Stew, GDS 25, 2003)

Limits and new opportunities for farmers

Today, economic deregulation, population growth, urban expansion, and highly fluctuating prices (both upwards and downwards) are important factors to consider because they materially change the conditions of access to markets and marketing.3 We might wonder whether the increase in prices is structural or

3 Améliorer le fonctionnement des marchés agricoles d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Alary P., Blein R., Faivre Dupaigre B., Soule B.G. – Farm, February 2008. – 75 p.

- Empowering Smallholder Farmers in Markets. Working document from Esfim. – NRI-Cirad-WUR, 2007. – 5 p.- Filières agroalimentaires en Afrique: comment rendre le marché plus efficace? Griffon M. et al. – Cirad, 2001.- The Coffee Paradox: Global Markets, Commodity Trade and the Elusive Promise of Development. Daviron B., Ponte S. –

Cirad-CTA, 2007.- The Agricultural Potential of West Africa. Blein R., Faivre Dupaigre B., Soule B.G., Yérima B. – Farm, 2008.

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circumstantial, and if these factors can represent opportunities to be seized by farmers (local markets, demands to satisfy, better prices). Can farmers benefit from price increases? What consequences does this have for consumers, remembering that farmers are also themselves consumers? Outside of their ability to innovate and organise, the strategies and room to manoeuvre available to farmers are limited, in particular by the purchasing power of consumers and competition from imported products.

The risk of moving toward a dual agriculture (of the South American variety) cannot be ignored. The stereotype is of an agricultural model based on a limited number of “modern advanced” farmers, with highly specialised systems of production oriented towards cash crops for export markets, and a large mass of rural poor who are dependent on food aid. There is also the risk that production systems may break the fragile balance of local ecological, nutritional and social systems and introduce imbalances between rural areas. This can foster emigration from the poorest rural areas towards those that have more resources (where there are irrigation ditches, for example), with the associated human and environmental consequences. Finally, the measures in favour of urban populations taken by several States following the recent food crisis in 2008 should not be allowed to mask the risk of national imbalances.

1.2 – Worthwhile but under-valued initiatives

Confronted with these market failures, farmers and their organisations have not remained inactive and passively accepted market conditions.4 A number of them have developed strategies, activities and services at different levels and on different scales in order to gain access to markets and sell their products on more favourable terms. These steps include organising production, managing supply, joining forces to sell collectively, negotiating and building alliances with different actors in the supply chain (merchants, transport, local officials, etc.), participating in multi-actor consultations, organising markets to make them more transparent, etc.

These local initiatives illustrate the ability of farmers and rural people to adapt, innovate and organise. They organise among themselves or in connection with other actors in the supply chain to position and market their products on the best terms possible. All of this takes place despite the above-mentioned failures in the markets, which are “unstructured” and do not always work in their favour. Nevertheless, this wealth of responses is little known or misunderstood by actors working in rural development. A number of the possible causes are discussed below, including technical reasons as well as those linked to institutional development aid processes.

Human reasons: actors with divergent interests

The actors involved in these initiatives may give priority to activities already underway and not have the time, the interest and/or the means to describe their own activities. Other local actors who might also be interested in the experience perhaps simply do not know about it. Experts in development, for their part, are reluctant to share information in the competitive “development marketplace”, because information constitutes a form of capital that can be used in project proposals, funding appeals, or job applications. Those who commission studies on these subjects may refuse to share the information for reasons of confidentiality.

Lack of useful information makes analysis of initiatives difficult

Information that is too highly compartmentalised, or incomplete or imprecise in the use of terminology, numbers, and vocabulary, is often a barrier. In fact, economic and technical data that is incomplete,

4 Economists have also evolved with the development of new theories (institutional and organisational economics) that point out the role of organisations as a means to coordinate and reduce imperfections in the market.

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incoherent or not properly situated in context (time, place) can lead to meaningless comparisons between prices at different times and places.

On the other hand, overly general information can also create limits. This can happen in the case of an FO that prefers to present grand action plans that it would like to carry out in the future, rather than talking about activities that have already been completed and could help convince other FOs of their ability to predict and act effectively. How many plans have been made without ever having been carried out? This is also the case with regards to “experts”, who “distance” themselves so much from the field that their discourse becomes too conceptual and difficult to put into practice. How many reports have been produced in which the information presented is so general that it could have been obtained from interviews with key people from cities in the North or South, without the need for actors on the ground?

Lastly, information which is too static, unsorted and all jumbled together like a picture with no sense of perspective, does not permit analysis of processes, conditions of growth, key change factors, etc.

Difficulty sharing initiatives: lack of adequate tools and spaces for exchange

Long-distance exchange of information via new technology also has limits: e-mail, forums, and websites are very useful for disseminating information to a mass public, but they do not necessarily guarantee fruitful dialogue between farmers and their FOs.

At the same time, external studies are also fraught with limitations: numerous studies have been carried out, but often due to a lack of time and means, the principal actors, the farmers themselves, are only peripherally involved in carrying out research. Consulted to provide information that fills these reports, the results that farmers receive are provided in hastily-organised workshops, dense reports that are too long to be read, or specific key projects on the ground.

We can also confirm the minimal impact derived from most workshops: the small amount of preparation beforehand, as well as the return to busy everyday life after the workshop, means the participants rarely have a meaningful exchange or derive much benefit post-workshop. There are also limitations in paired exchanges, which are often too short to provide a real analysis of local conditions.

The difficulty of information exchange and communication between farmers or with their financial, commercial, and technical partners is also an important issue.

1.3 – Deep prejudices and idealised stereotypes

It is unfortunate that initiatives started by farmers and their FOs are not more widely shared between farmers, FOs and other actors working in rural development. In fact, many farmers (although they aren’t the only ones) have little understanding of how markets function, of the mechanisms that drive pricing, and of the activities, roles and positioning of the actors who participate in them.5 A large number of farmers have views of the market that are based on caricatures, or on the contrary, idealised views of stereotyped “models” that do not exist. These views lead FOs to develop activities and services that are not well-adapted to the often complex realities and that do not meet the needs of farmer members. The examples below illustrate misguided positions and proposals meant to improve the lot of farmers.

“We need a truck to transport our products to a place where prices are better!”

One stubborn misconception concerns merchants and intermediaries; farmers tend to see them as speculators and greedy profiteers: “Merchants are thieves!” Strategies to “eliminate” these actors are desired, researched and developed by farmers or promoted by aid organisations.

5 NGOs and support projects are not exempt from this criticism

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However, these “eviction” strategies prove in many cases to be difficult to maintain over the long term, in particular when development projects run their course.

We ask if these strategies – conceived in situations where the balance of power is unfavourable to farmers – ignore, or at the very least undervalue, the actual roles that merchants and other intermediaries play in the economy? Are these strategies always of benefit to farmers?

“We need shops and funding for the FO so that it can purchase from farmers when they need money and sell when prices are highest!”

Because they need money, farmers are sometimes forced to sell at harvest time, when prices are at their lowest. As a result, any opportunity to obtain short-term capital is seen as a boon for farmers and their organisations: these funds allow the FO to buy the harvest at a good price from farmers who can thus obtain money without having to sell off their products.

However, stories of short-term capital melting away like snow in the sun are also common. Is there always a gap in prices between harvest time and the shortfall season? Is warehousing really a good option for farmers in order to sell for better terms? Furthermore, upon closer examination, it appears that merchants do not always adopt these same strategies over the long term. In fact, FO purchasing freezes a large amount of capital with a largely uncertain outcome.

“We need equipment to process our products to improve sales”

The implicit sub-text here is that “processed products sell for a higher price”. If we understand that a processed product includes a higher amount of added value, it remains to be seen who gets this added value. Is processing always synonymous with higher added value for the farmer? Is this true if farmers remain a weak link in the supply chain when it comes to negotiating power?

“We need better information about markets in order to receive a higher price”

One common notion is that farmers lack information, that they do not know real prices, and that they are subsequently exploited by merchants who do not pay them fairly. This implicitly suggests that “if we knew which places offered the best prices, we would earn more money”.

One obvious solution is to set up and give widespread access to price and market information systems (MIS). But does this solution always work? Is it enough for farmers to simply have information about market prices in order to access that market and/or orient their decisions in terms of production and marketing strategies?

“Farmers are not sufficiently organised, they just need to come together to be stronger”

This is another way of saying that “if things are bad when we are on our own, they will be better if we are in a group. The only way is to organise to have more power to negotiate with merchants.”

The problem is that in a context of price fluctuations, insecurity and/or poverty, collective strategies are much more difficult to maintain than individual strategies. When problems arise, the latter “opportunist” or “survivor” strategies will multiply, to the detriment of long-term collective strategies. Thus it is when “playing together” is most necessary that it is also the hardest to maintain group cohesion.

In uncertain situations, betting on the future is risky, and it is more common to settle for “one” today instead of “two” tomorrow: “One in the hand is worth two in the bush”.

The prevalence of “short-term individual strategies” is thus exacerbated. To add to the difficulty,

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collective strategies are time-consuming and costly to put in place, while individual strategies spring readily from the numerous and tempting offers of buyers.

“For successful marketing, we need a well-organised supply chain!”

Farmers often say that supply chains are “disorganised” or “unstructured”. They have in the back of their minds a nostalgic memory of the so-called organised supply chain model, referring to the integrated supply chains for cotton , or in other similar sectors where the State is deeply involved, notably export crops such as coffee and cocoa).

However the “success” of the past6 appears to be less the result of modes of organisation and coordination of supply chains than the consequence of favourable international market conditions with higher global prices. Meanwhile, sectors that were previously highly regulated (with or without State intervention) are in the throes of profound restructuring in the current context of deregulation and no longer function “as before”.

When it comes to other commodities, such as cashew nuts in Benin or other food sectors, can we really call them disorganised? Or are they organised in ways that the farmers do not understand or have not mastered? Or perhaps these sectors do not interest them, either as farmers (where prices are too low) or as consumers (where prices are too high).

“The commodity chain is disorganised, we should create an inter-professional association!”

Another idealised stereotype, the interprofessional organisation model, is very popular at the moment. It is often initiated by development financiers, and is also popular with certain States and idealised by farmers. However in practice, there is no one single model. There are, on the contrary, many ways that farmers and other actors in the supply chain can organise themselves, each designed to address specific problems.

Furthermore, what should we expect from a field in which the stakeholders (farmers’ organisations, processors and/or merchants) are very different in terms of level of organisation, information and power? Can multi-actor dialogue solve these problems? Is it enough to put actors side by side in multi-actor forums so that measures are agreed across groups? Are these forums for consultation tools that are really favourable to farmers?

“In order to sell our products, we need to protect our borders!”

Protectionism is often seen as a necessary and sufficient solution to resolve the problems of marketing: “stop importing rice so that we can sell our own rice”. We often hear the example of the trade embargo placed on Dutch potatoes and the subsequent success of the “Belle de Guinée” sold by the Fouta Djallon Federation.

But can local rice completely replace imported rice, in the desired quality and quantity, at the right places and at the right times? We might ask why other efforts to block imports of onion at the Guinean border, following complaints by the Fouta Djallon Federation, have not met with similar success. The erection of trade barriers is not a miracle solution. Besides, are there not instances, in the absence of trade protection, where organised farmers are able to access markets and sell their products for acceptable terms?

6 Of course not everyone is in agreement about the positive outlook on these statist societies. Farmers’ work was not always remunerated at a fair price.

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1.4 – Overly general solutions, disconnected from reality

The facts have been known for several decades

Innumerable reports on the agricultural sector have been submitted to political and financial officials, based on teaching and research, the private sector, agro-business and farmers. All of these have explicitly pointed to multiple failures in markets.

These studies regularly remind us of: (i) the lack of information and transparency; (ii) the lack of financing and suitable credit; (iii) problems of land management; (iv) infrastructure problems; (v) weaknesses in human resources; (vi) the low level of involvement by the affected parties in formulating programmes and policies; (vii) the lack of rules, or when they exist, corruption and absence of enforcement (at borders notably, but not exclusively). This list is not exhaustive..

The solutions have also been known for a long time

Where solutions are concerned, numerous studies have formulated lists of key measures that can improve the lot of farmers.

They proclaim the need: (i) to minimise uncertainty in production; (ii) to improve transparency and access to markets; (iii) to improve infrastructure, notably roads; (iv) to invest in agricultural research; (v) to encourage innovation and its uptake; (vi) to facilitate access to varied forms of credit that meet different needs (short-term seasonal credit, medium- and long-term credit for investments in equipment); (vii) to improve border controls (viii) to embark on land-reform initiatives; (ix) to eliminate corruption (x) to involve local populations and adopt “participatory” models; (xi) to improve skills, etc.

For FOs to better market products, it is deemed “necessary” in particular to improve:

• Access to transport, notably to profit from the difference in prices between cities and rural areas;

• Access to means of processing to increase added value;

• Access to credit or short-term capital to enable storage, allowing farmers to benefit from the price difference between the harvest and the off-season.

• Access to information about prices and markets, in order to gain from greater transparency and optimal market choices.

It is also often said that collective action by organised farmers is necessary: increasing the negotiating power of farmers; creating pluri- or inter-professional organisations or discussion forums; setting up supply chains, etc. The list of a priori solutions is not exhaustive either.

Impractical solutions

Why do so many studies and workshops continually repeat themselves? Is it because the researchers were not aware of previous work carried out by others? “Many things have already been written, but not all of them have been read”.7 Then the problem becomes how to keep track of what has already been said or written by others.

Perhaps these studies repeat themselves because they are too disconnected from reality and do not propose truly satisfying solutions. Is it realistic to think that we can arrive at a point where farmers and their FOs would have access to credit, would have short-term capital and could produce, store, process, transport and sell their products directly to the final consumers (after having been fully informed of the best market conditions thanks to a functional information system)? Is this not a vision of an idealised

7 Roger Perelman.

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world based on solutions that contradict local realities? Can farmers really be expected to internalise this entire process? Is this not an attempt to push them to retreat from connections with other actors and realities? Are there situations where farmers operate without keeping track of other actors and/or in an environment where “everything works” (credit, infrastructure, transparent markets, etc.)?

Does reality not demonstrate the difficulty of working in an environment that is not ideal, nor a priori favourable? Farmers are not the only ones making decisions, either as to how supply chains should work, or at the policy level. Doesn’t this view incite farmers to fold in on themselves and take an isolationist stance that increases their risks?

Furthermore, are these solutions – as much as they can be adapted to local situations – fully effective? One-size-fits-all solutions that begin with “You just need to…” have a tendency to ignore the specificity and diversity of local situations, and rarely explain “why” they have not yet been suggested or applied. These solutions rarely propose the “how”, which is needed to apply them in concrete terms at the local scale. Local actors appear too infrequently in these “cure all” solutions which very rarely manage to “cure” local dynamics and produce dialogue.

The We-Know-What-To-Do tribe (Samson, 2009)

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2 – SCOPE AND FRAMEWORK OF PROJECT

Rather than starting with what local actors, farmers and rural people could or should be doing, Inter-réseaux started from existing local initiatives led by actors and their organisations. From this base Inter-réseaux developed a process by which the actors analysed their own initiatives.

2.1 – A choice of method: to study real initiatives using actors who are directly involved

The starting point chosen to tackle this vast theme of “market access and agricultural product marketing” was to analyse existing reality, concrete cases, and what had already been done, rather than seeking general or generic solutions for “what should be done”. A second decision was made to carry out research with local actors, so that they could participate in “dissecting” and understanding local situations in all their complexity. In this way they were able to use existing examples to support local dynamics and/or improve decisions at the organisational level as well as with decision makers at higher levels. These choices are also intended for Inter-réseaux’s “target audience”: rural development actors for whom the analysis of concrete case studies by other practitioners could be enriching and could expand their tool kit of activities and references.

This method of working around a specific theme, called the Thematic Working Group, was applied to the analysis of initiatives that farmers, rural people, and their organisations are carrying out to improve their access to markets and the marketing of their agricultural goods. Overall, the analysis looked at initiatives that had already been completed or were still ongoing, making up a rich wealth of experience. This work capitalised on these experiences so that other actors in rural development (agriculture, aid organisations) could be made aware of them and could extract knowledge that might be used in their own activities.

Studies of initiatives were carried out with local actors from 2004 to 2007 in Benin, Cameroon, Guinea, and Mali primarily, and also in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Madagascar, Niger and Senegal. The method focused on (i) analysis and comparison in different times and places (study of processes in a variety of places) rather than static descriptions, and (ii) collaborative reflection through the creation of forums and tools for discussion, as well as exchanges pertaining to farmers’ initiatives (visits, creation of documents, audio and video recordings ).

2.2 – A field of study “limited” to family farmers

Farmers whose strategies are based on family-scale holdings

Using the Working Group approach, we worked alongside farmers and breeders, individuals and members of organisations. This group of men and women who were part of “family-sized” farming operations was quite diverse.

One definition of family agriculture that we refer to frequently in this document is as follows:

A definition of family farming

“One could say, in order to simplify, that family agriculture is characterised by the predominance of work by family members and a family-based organisation in the production process, on the one hand, and on the other hand, by the existence of a clear link between production, consumption, and birth rates among those tied to the farm.

Defined using these characteristics, family-scale agriculture comprises highly differentiated situations with regards to access to land (land-owning farmers with very different types of land rights, landlords and tenant

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farmers, landless farmers, etc.), production techniques (manual labour, animal labour, mechanisation), productivity, and final destination of farm production (home consumption, local exchanges, supplying national and international markets).”

Source : MR. Mercoiret, p. 149, in “Les organisations paysannes et les politiques agricoles”. Afrique contemporaine n°217. – AFD, 2006-1. – p. 135-157.

Families are rooted in the land, and strategies employed by family farmers to run their operations are also very often linked to a specific territory, that of the village or the community where the family lives. It is for others therefore to talk about family-based rural agriculture.

We have chosen this definition among others because it corresponds to the study group of the present work.8

“Views” on family agriculture (Stew, GDS 44, 2008)

Family-scale farmers possess different levels of access to the means of production (labour, land, capital), as well as to markets for agricultural products, land, and credit. Also, due to their relationship to the family unit and local territory, family-scale farmers behave differently from more wealthy investors and/or “capitalist” or “absentee” landowners, who are of another order, economically and financially speaking.9

We are careful to avoid the easy and misleading confusion between “family farmers” and “small farmers” (cf. box below). Family farmers have constraints and strategies to overcome them, which differ from those of the other types of farmers discussed above, and it is interesting to consider these in greater detail.

This choice of focusing on family agriculture can be justified by the fact that family farms predominate in the countries where this work was carried out, and more generally throughout sub-Saharan Africa, where they play an essential role.

8 Pour l’agriculture familiale: Oui, mais laquelle ? / GDS 43, p 29. – Inter-réseaux, 2008. – 2 p.9 If family farmers have strategies linked to the family’s life cycle, wealthy investors and absentee landlords have strategies that are mainly geared toward the maximisation of profits taken from invested capital and/or income linked to land speculation. Their strategies and means of accessing markets and selling their products are therefore very different.

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“African agriculture is highly diverse but for the most part, consists of family agriculture. Their contribution to production remains high in most of the countries on the continent; they cannot however be understood simply through their productive function: they also play an important role in food security, employment and revenue, as well as in the management of renewable environmental resources; they thus contribute in an important way to the territorial, social and political balance of a number of countries.”10

Family farmers and their organisations also constitute part of the target audience for Inter-réseaux. The initiatives for marketing discussed in this document are exclusively conducted by family farmers.

Subsistence crops, cash crops, sale crops and commercial crops farmers

In the literature as in common parlance, distinctions are often made between the following activities:

• On one hand farmers who produce subsistence crops which are rapidly consumed by the families themselves. These “little” farmers are considered to be disconnected from the markets.

• On the other hand farmers who grow so-called cash crops, which are easily absorbed as export crops (cotton, coffee or cocoa).11 These farmers are considered to be “real farmers” with an actual function, producing food or primary materials destined for sale to consumers and industrialists.

It is thus easy to assign family production to the “small-scale subsistence” category, which is intended only to meet the nutritional needs of the individual family. Reality is of course more complex.

Subsistence crops can be produced to feed urban centres, above and beyond what is required for the family. While less visible, because they come from a multitude of dispersed farmers, these crops are no less important for feeding the cities.12 Subsistence crops might initially be planted to be consumed by the family (in order to avoid purchasing foodstuffs at a higher price) and end up being sold to meet an immediate need for money. Elsewhere, a single farmer might combine subsistence crops, whether destined for the market or not (tomato, onion) along with crops that are clearly intended for sale (ginger, cashew nuts, cotton etc.).

We thus see that individual cases are much more complex, and cannot be reduced to the simple stereotypes set out above.

Farmers consumers: is selling a commercial choice?

It is possible to talk about marketing strategies used by farmers who produce ginger or coffee crops for sale, when they seek to improve their marketing efforts by acquiring better knowledge of the actors in the supply chain and the mechanisms that set prices, for example.

But what should be said of products that were not initially intended for sale, when the grower is forced to sell his or her rice, at the immediately available price in order to get cash (to set up other agricultural activities or to pay for healthcare or education)? Indeed, the grower’s product ends up in the market. However, is it appropriate to refer to issues of market access and agricultural product marketing in this type of situation? Can one address market access and agricultural product marketing without also considering questions like access to credit, food security, and the vulnerability of populations?

It is important avoid mixing up objectives, and to differentiate between problems related to “market access and marketing” and other kinds of problems (access to credit, very vulnerable populations). This

10 MR. Mercoiret, 2006.

11 Talking about “cash” crops when they are produced by family farmers, and for small amounts of money, is perhaps a misuse of language: When does something become a cash crop? Are farmers in Mali who grow cotton, cash croppers? If export production is assimilated into cash crops, might fair trade products and supply chains become the latest cash crop market entrants?“

12 Cf. the numerous works by Cirad on this subject.

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said, these questions remain interdependent: farmers are also consumers, and farm populations still constitute an important proportion of the total population in many countries. It is therefore necessary to consider these questions along with those pertaining to food security and policy choices about the decisions and means required to feed populations, whether rural or urban.

Family farmers, rural folk, small farmers, rural poor?

Despite the plethora of different terms employed, we must not confuse “family” with “small” production (cf. box below). Family farmers produce agricultural food, whether they consume or sell their products. The “farmer” used throughout this document refers to men and women who pursue agricultural or breeding activities on family-based farms, whether the products are consumed or sold. Likewise, the term FO designates farmers’ organisations that bring together men and women who pursue agricultural activities on family farms.13

Family agriculture: persistent myths that are difficult to debunk

Family-based agriculture is still often misperceived as being small, archaic, not modern, unproductive, limited to subsistence, obsolete, a thing of the past, incapable of innovation, resistant to change, rigid, anti-capitalist, non-competitive, not adapted to the market, and synonymous with poverty. Inversely commercial agriculture, which possesses much higher concentrations of capital (and fertiliser), is almost always qualified as modern, dynamic, entrepreneurial, integrated with markets, productive, profitable, and capable of feeding the world. However reality is not so simple.

“Family-based” = “small”?

A “small” family farmer in Brazil cultivates around 100 ha; a farmer with 1 ha in a rice plain in Vietnam could not be considered to be a small farmer. Family-scale agriculture exists in a plurality of types and offers extremely different examples depending on the societies in which they are located. They span a large range of situations, from small tenant farmers to mechanised farming, maybe even employing paid labour. A family-scale farm can also be very large!

“Family-based” = “anti-capitalist”?

Numerous analyses show the competitive advantages of family agriculture in terms of getting the maximum out of inputs: family farms can be more economically efficient than other forms of agriculture that are considered “modern”!

“Family-based” = “rigid”?

Family-scale farmers have demonstrated their dynamism, flexibility, capacity to innovate, ability to adapt innovations to the requirements of the market, readiness to respond to market signals and to adapt to rapid changes in the economic and political system – sometimes at an unfortunately high social and economic cost.

“Family based” = “marginal”?

Family agriculture plays an important role in terms of contribution to the economy (percentage of GDP) and employment for the population in Africa as well as on other continents: 1.3 billion people are active in family agriculture in the Global South, and close to 2.5 billion people if we also count those who depend directly on this activity (41% of the global population).

“Larger” = “more profitable”?

In agriculture, productivity is not proportional to the land area under cultivation: large farms do not always provide economies of scale.

Source: Insert in GDS n°23 on “l’agriculture familiale” / A. Lothoré. – Inter-réseaux, 2003.

13 In these family farms, agricultural activity might not be the only form of support, with rural populations often engaging in a number of different activities. Cf. GDS n°45: Activités rurales non agricoles. – Inter-réseaux, 2008. – 16 p.

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2.3 – Diversity of contexts and strategies that defy exhaustive categorisation

The limitations to our work also derive from the diversity of strategies used by farmers and their FOs. Within family agriculture itself, the diversity of activities conceived and developed by the farmers to market their products is enormous, as reported in several African countries targeted by the Working Group. The FOs themselves are highly diverse: groups of individual farmers, intermediaries and federations, can all represent different kinds of farmers and engage in a broad range of economic, social and/or organised activities. This pluralism is the result of a multiple changing contexts, particularly agro-environmental and socio-economic, as well as the diverse and evolving objectives of farmers and communities.. This illustrates that no single activity is intrinsically the best response; an activity may be useful at a given moment, and turn out to be poorly suited later on.

Initiatives by FOs that were judged to be potentially interesting were identified beforehand according to their characteristics: types of sales, size of the initiative, volume, number of people involved, etc.

The initiatives finally chosen by the Working Group were determined by ongoing local dynamics: availability and immediate priorities, relevance for specific marketing activities, outcomes of collective action and thinking.The ten FO initiatives that appear throughout this document do not cover the entirety of those studied by the Working Group. The target FOs share the common feature of having existed for a number of years, and thus having had the opportunity to experiment with a large array of activities, some of which were successes while others were failures. The analysis of both successes and failures enabled the Working Group to better understand the factors that led to success for FOs and their marketing activities. Activities by FOs at the level of agricultural policy or international negotiations are not covered in the scope of this document. The present work therefore does not make a claim to exhaustiveness, and this document presents only a partial vision of the existing reality.

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3 – OBJECTIVES OF THIS DOCUMENT AND INTENDED AUDIENCES

3.1 – A wealth of information to share and discuss

This document can be considered a resource compendium of methods and tools used by the Working Group to create different forums and forms of debate and exchange. But as readers will have already noted, it devotes a great deal of space to analyses from case studies carried out with farmers and support organisations.

The aim is to publicise and relay information about the local initiatives run by farmers and their organisations, describing the diversity of initiatives that exist to help improve access to markets and the marketing of agricultural products.

This document testifies to the capacity for innovation and adaptation by actors in the Global South in a context of opening borders and economic liberalisation, trends which are not always in their favour.

It is also intended to fuel debate. It is an invitation to look at local dynamics and experience for the benefit of future activities and to improve the practices dealing with access to markets and the marketing of agricultural products.

This document is not a manual. It is a tool for the organisation of discussions about approaches and practices:

• Methods of building collaborative exercises and the case for local initiatives as tools for change (chapters 1 and 3);

• Methods used by farmers and/or organisations that support them, to improve access to markets and the marketing of agricultural products (chapters 2 et 3).

It is particularly intended for farmers and those who support their activities: organisers, development workers, staff from FOs, NGOs, and other rural development support organisations, political decision-makers and funding agencies. Although this work was carried out in sub-Saharan Africa, this document might be useful for those actors who work in other geographical areas, even those outside of the African continent.

This desire to encourage exchange and collective discussion explains in particular the decision to organise chapter 2 (comparative studies of individual and collective activities by farmers) into individual information sheets on the different types of activities carried out by FOs.

3.2 – Comparative-analysis sheets on FO initiatives to promote debate

The comparative analyses of initiatives dealing with market access and agricultural product marketing constitute the heart of this document (chapter 2). We could have limited ourselves to a few lines summarising general findings. This would have meant writing in general terms, covering topics discussed by others elsewhere, already known to readers and of little use for actors on the ground.

These sheets on the other hand accord importance to examples that illustrate in each case the common points between types of activity: according to context, the degree of FO organisation, chances for success, etc. Each of these sheets can be used separately to guide reflection about the themes chosen by discussants.

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Highlighting the risks and the limitations of activities: constructive criticism

For each type of activity described in chapter 2 (purchasing and storage, warrantage credit, etc.) we intentionally emphasised the risks, limitations and difficulties encountered by the FOs that attempted them.

This does not suggest that these activities were not “good” or useful, or that the FOs conducted them poorly. Highlighting risks and limitations in fact serves a double objective:

• On the one hand, to show that for the most part, these activities are not easy to develop, and often emerge over the long term, through trial, error and collective learning;

• And on the other hand, to encourage careful reflection before embarking on such activities because it is the farmers, members of FOs and others that we are trying to help who ultimately bear the burden of risk and suffer the consequences. Over-analysing the risks inherent to these practices might seem to be a form of short-term thinking, however this is also applicable to the long-term: if collective dynamics take a long time to successfully construct, they can also be quickly and permanently destroyed.

Slices of reality: a choice to facilitate reading and allow users to hand-pick information

We have chosen to present the activities carried out by farmers and their organisations in information files organised “by activity” or “by sheet”.

This should not give the reader the impression that these activities are independent from one another: in reality, FOs often combine a number of different activities. Presenting the totality of activities in separate sections simply allows this document to be more easily absorbed piece by piece, with users able to choose “à la carte” when leading discussions about initiatives to market agricultural products.

No preference is expressed in the order of presentation of activities by farmers and their FOs. Nonetheless, the most widely known activities are often presented first.

Tools to complement the comparative-analysis sheets

Complementing the comparative-analysis sheets from chapter 2, which present the activities of the FOs in a segmented fashion, there are other materials available: experience summaries, audio and video recordings as well as filmmaking guides. These materials relate to the cases studied by the Working Group.14 They can be usefully read, listened to or viewed for a better understanding of the experience of each FO mentioned in the analysis sheets below.

These other written and recorded materials present the experiences of the FOs using a historical approach. They analyse the failures and successes of the FOs over the course of their evolution and across multiple activities aimed at improving the marketing of their members’ agricultural products.

14 All of these materials are available online at www.inter-reseaux.org.

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